Chrysanthemum plant named ‘Mother Teresa’

ABSTRACT

The present invention relates to a novel hybrid plant of  Chrysanthemum morifolium  Ramat christened as ‘Mother Teresa’ and having dwarf, bushy, compact round shaped., profuse blooming habit, producing white Anemone type flowers with distinct white ray florets and creamish white disc florets, green foliage with few white streaks and requiring neither ‘Pinching’ nor ‘Staking’.

LATIN NAME OF THE GENUS AND SPECIES OF THE PLANT CLAIMED

Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat.

VARIETY DENOMINATION

Mother Teresa.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a new ornamental chrysanthemum plantchristened as ‘Mother Teresa’.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety ofChrysanthemum morifolium Ramat, a member of the Chrysanthemum genus,which has been developed using the open pollinated seedling method.Chrysanthemum morifolium is a popular flower crop of world-widecommercial importance. Chrysanthemum varieties have earned tremendouspopularity as an ornamental flower for garden, as cut flowers forinterior decoration and loose flower. Demand of new and novel varietiesof Chrysanthemum are increasing day-by-day in the world floriculturetrade.

Chrysanthemum can be propagated both by seed and vegetative means. Crossbreeding and selective breeding helped in developing large number of newvarieties. The genotype ‘Mother Teresa’ has evolved through seedlingselections of open pollinations among specific group of chrysanthemum.The new genotype evolved in this invention represents such animprovement combining novel flower colour and shape and plant stature.The new variety offers the floriculturists/nurserymen an improvedattractive novel ornamental plant which can be commercially cultivated.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a new arid distinct hybrid Chrysanthemummorifolium variety christened as ‘Mother Teresa’ characterized byprofuse blooming habit, dwarf bush, white Anemone type mini plant habit.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The invention provides a new, novel and distinct hybrid Chrysanthemummorifolium plant christened as ‘Mother Teresa’, having the followingcombination of characters:

(a) Green foliage with few white streaks,

(b) White Anemone type flower;

(c) Dwarf bushy, compact round shaped, profuse blooming plant, suitablefor mini culture;

(d) Pigment composition of petals being distinct from other existingvarieties, and

(f) True-to-type performance under different environments.

The new variety of this invention is a Chrysanthemum morifoliumgenotype, christened as ‘Mother Teresa’. This plant has been developedthrough planned breeding programmes conducted at National BotanicalResearch Institute, Lucknow, India with an aim to develop a new hybridvariety of Chrysanthemum morifolium. For this purpose existing minivarieties of chrysanthemum i.e. Haldighati and Swarna Singar (unpatentedvarieties) were grown very closely in the field in August 1989 atLucknow, India facilitating pollination among themselves. The seedsborne on existing cultivars (Haldighati and Swarna Singar) werecollected in January 1990 and were sown in February 1990. One of theplants in the field was a dwarf plant that exhibited Anemone typeflowers and profuse blooming. This plant was given number DWS 13 and wasselected for further observation and evaluation.

Considering the attractive flower colour and shape and plant growthhabit, it was asexually reproduced in Lucknow, India through suckers tomaintain clonal purity. The selected clone DWS 13 was grown both in bedsand 10″ earthen pots alongwith existing mini varieties (Haldighati andSwarna Singar) for five successive generations from 1990 upto 1995. Theclone DWS 13 maintained its flower colour and shape and plant growthhabit in all the generations. This plant was found to be different fromall other chrysanthemum plants in colour of flowers, shape and pigmentcomposition of petals.

In the subsequent year (1996), the genotype DWS 13 was evaluated in bothreplicated field and pot trial alongwith existing parents to study theflower colour and shape and plant growth habit. The clone DWS 12 bredtrue to type and proved very attractive over the existing varieties inquality of bloom including colour, shape and type of bloom.Chrysanthemum cultivation (large and small flowered cultivars) requirelot of cultural operations including ‘Pinching’ and ‘Staking’. For smallflowered Chrysanthemum apical shoot tips are cut (half to one inch) togive proper shape to the plant. This operation is called “Pinching” and“Staking” is necessary to keep plants erect and to maintain proper shapeof plant and bloom. These operations are expensive and time consuming.

National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, India has alreadydeveloped ‘Mini Chrysanthemum’ which is unique of its kind. It requiresneither ‘Pinching’ nor ‘Staking’. It is a unique genetic strain withdwarf; bushy, compact round shaped, profuse blooming habit. Number ofexisting mini varieties and their colour is very limited at present.Efforts were made to develop new flower colour under an on goingimprovement research programme.

The new clone DWS 13, selected from open pollinated, seedling, is aproduct of this Research Programme and has been Christened ‘MotherTeresa’.

EVIDENCE OF UNIFORMITY AND STABILITY

The genotype ‘Mother Teresa’ has remained stable and uniform for itsmorphological characters and showed consistency in performance forvarious vegetative and floral quality attributes during its evaluationand vegetative multiplication from 1990 until 1995.

No variation was detected in morphological characters especially in theflower colour characters through vegetative multiplication during largescale propagation, testing and field trial upto 1997.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

The accompanying photographic drawing shows the typical flowercharacteristics of ‘Mother Theresa’ with colors as true as possible withan illustration of this type. The photographic drawing depicts a potgrown plant of ‘Mother Teresa’ showing the flower arrangement, shape,and colour.

STATEMENT OF DISTINCTION

The genotype ‘Mother Teresa’ possesses small, thin green leaves withvery small white streaks on it, white Anemone type flower, dwarf, bushy,compact round shaped, profuse blooming habit.

The genotype ‘Mother Teresa’ is distinct in regeneration potential insecond and subsequent generations in morphological and flowercharacters.

Repeated petal extracts from different plants of Mother Teresa showedthe same peaks for pigments in spectrophotometer.

PIGMENT ANALYSIS

The main difference between new hybrid ‘Mother Teresa’ and two existingparental varieties (Haldighati and Swarna Singar) was in flower colourand shape. Therefore, flower pigment of three genotypes were analyzed toestablish the relatedness among them.

For detection of pigment composition florets (1 gm) of three genotypeswere extracted in methanol containing 1% HCl and centrifuged. Thesupernatant was taken into volumetric flask and volume was made upto 50ml. The extract was scanned from 200 to 700 nm wavelength inspectrophotometer. The details of compound in different genotypes are asfollows:

No. of Peak Genotype (Compound) Peak Height Wave length Mother Teresa 10.768 204.3 2 0.256 268.2 Haldighati 1 0.450 192.1 2 1.419 204.5 3 0.887328.0 4 0.093 415.4 5 0.122 434.8 6 0.109 462.0 Swarna Singar 1 0.609193.1 2 2.079 206.6 3 0.882 248.6 4 0.780 268.1 5 0.177 330.4 6 0.192434.3 7 0.167 462.1

Pigment analysis clearly indicate that genotype ‘Mother Teresa’ was verydistinct in pigment composition from two other parental genotypes bothqualitatively and quantitatively.

Ojective Description of the Variety “Mother Teresa” (DWS 13)

The following is an objective description of a 5 month old plant of‘Mother Teresa’:

Genus: Chrysanthemum.

Species: morifolium Ramat.

Family: Compositae.

Common name: English: Chrysanthemum; Local names: Sanskrit — Sevanti;Hindi — Guldaudi; Bengali — Chandramallika; Marathi — Shevati; Tamil —Akkarakkaram; Telgu — Chamunti; Punjabi — Gondi, Bagaura; Urdu —Guledawoodi.

Plant height: About 22 cm.

Growth habit: Dwarf, busy, compact.

Blooming period: December-January, responds to short or long daytreatment; blooming period may be prompted or delayed by photoperiodictreatment.

Time it takes to produce a rooted cutting: Approximately 15 days underLucknow, India conditions in July.

Cold tolerance: To 5° C.

Stem: Quadrangular, green RHS 138C.

Lateral branches: Mostly alternate with profuse short length terminalbranches.

Leaf: Small, thin, green with very small white streaks.

Texture.—Thin.

Surface.—Smooth (rarely few hairs).

Shape.—Oval.

Margin.—Serrated.

Tip.—Acute.

Size.—Broad.

Length.—3.2 cm.

Width.—1.8 cm.

Color.—Upper surface green RHS 137A. Lower surface green RHS 138B.

Petiole length.—0.4 cm.

Inflorescence: Capitullum.

Ray florets.—White, 1-2 whorl.

Disc florets.—Compact, slightly creamish white, disc very prominent,180-210 disc florets per head, apex rounded, 0.8-1.2 cm in length.

Flower type: Anemone.

Peduncle: Short, 3-4 cm in length, smooth surface, green RHS 138D.

Seeds: Low production, size: smaller than 1 mm, dark grey in color.

The salient features of ‘Mother Teresa’ and two other existing varietiesare as follows.

Varieties Characters Mother Teresa Haldighati Swrana Singar Leaf length(cm) 3.2 2.6 2.4 Leaf width (cm) 1.8 1.4 1.5 Petiole length (cm) 0.4 1.11.0 Plant height (cm) 22 27.5 14.0 Floret/head 34 32 76 Floret length(cm) 1.2 1.2 1.3 Floret width (cm) 0.5 0.4 1.4 Bloom type 1-2 whorl ray1-3 whorl ray Double Korean floret, flat, floret, flat, disc prominent,disc prominent, Anemone type Decorative type Floret colour White rayfloret, Bright yellow Yellow group light yellowish Yellow group (12A)White group (9A) FAN 1 (158A) FAN 1 FAN 4 No. of pigment 2 6 7

The floret colour which is the main novelty of ornamentals wasidentified in the present varieties according to R.H.S. Colour Chartpublished by The Royal Horticultural Society, London in association withthe Flower Council of Holland, 1966.

I claim:
 1. A new and distinct plant of Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramatchristened as ‘Mother Teresa’ as herein described and shown.